Our ice fishing adventure

Busy, busy, as usual. I am way behind in blogland. So here is a little catch up.

We went fishing on Monday. Ice fishing, that is. -N- and Spalding, good man, went last year with a friend from work. Spalding thought he knew where he was going. We got into the town where the reservoir is and stopped to ask directions. Our neighbor was with us. There were two people who pointed in two directions. The more assertive one won out. Can you see where this is going? We ended up at the river boat dock (in the summer it is great fishing there) And the river does flow into the reservoir there, but there is no road. So we turned around and went to the gas station.

The lady at the gas station had no idea what we were talking about. Spalding waited for a guy to pull into the gas station and asked him. He had snowmachines. He looked like he knew the area. So he told us to go up the road and look for a big sign. So we did. Only problem, not the reservoir we were looking for. We figured that out before the sign.

We turned around again and stopped at a house. This guy knew what he was talking about. So off we went. We were going along fine until the fork in the road. I thought we should turn left. Spalding thought we should "choose the right". after going about 100 yds. He thought we should turn around. One the narrow road, we started to turn around, pulling to the shoulder of the road (which was covered in snow). There was a drop Half our Yukon was up to the running board in snow. ( I had picts, but accidentally deleted the whole card when I was trying to delete a few pictures :( )

We tried emptied our bucket of fishing gear to try to use the bucket to shovel ourselves out. Spalding and Emma trekked down the road to find someone to help us. Our lucky day, a firefighter with a 4wheel drive truck and tow rope drove down the road. He was able to pull us out.

We finally arrived at the reservoir. Despite the sign, we fished there. Where we fished, the ice was 12 inches thick.

Spalding found a hand auger on craigslist and was ecstatic to be able to use it. It took two men 20 minutes to drill one hole.

After two holes were drilled, we finally asked another fisherman to help us out with his gas auger. He drilled 5 holes in about 3 minutes. We will be looking for a gas powered auger on craigslist. :)

-k-'s favorite part was scooping the ice out of the hole so it would not freeze up.When we decided to pack up and go (We all had fun fishing , although we caught no fish.) AHHHHHH! Our neighbors daughter stepped in a hole. Good thing we were done fishing. We pulled off her shoe and sock. She wore one of my mittens to keep her foot dry and warm. -N- and -L- thought it would be fun to full the holes back in with snow. AHHHHHHH! Another scream, and -E-stepped in a different hole up to her knee.

It was a memorable fishing trip. We had a good time. The weather was nice (sunny, cold, and no wind). Hopefully next time we catch some fish!